Working in Glass

How a twisted triangle of glass tubing helped democratize chemistry and build the modern laboratory.

The Legibility Problem

What happens in a world where AIs make scientific discoveries that humans cannot understand?

AI Won't Automatically Accelerate Clinical Trials

A critique of a snippet from Dario Amodei and Dwarkesh Patel’s recent interview.

A Visual Guide to DNA Sequencing

How to “read” nucleic acids, from Sanger to nanopores.

The Origins of Agar

First introduced into laboratories in 1881, agar remains indispensable as a culture medium.

Baseline Drift

Eliomer H. Kaas

A eulogy to the reference human.

Making the Vortex Mixer

Ella Watkins-Dulaney

The forgotten story of an invention found in every biology lab.